Great Throughts Treasury

This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.

Related Quotes

Ezra Taft Benson

The devil knows that if the elders of Israel should ever wake up, they could step forth and help preserve freedom and extend the gospel. Therefore the devil has concentrated, and to a large extent successfully, in neutralizing much of the priesthood. He has reduced them to Sleeping Giants.

Children | God | Good | Heaven | Power | Satan | War | God |

Ezra Taft Benson

The proud wish God would agree with them. They are not interested in changing their opinions to agree with God's.

Hunger | Life | Life | Power | Study | Will |

Ezra Taft Benson

A child needs a mother more than all the things money can buy. Spending time with your children is the greatest gift of all.

Argument | Authority | Danger | Force | Good | Government | Grave | Growth | History | Hope | Individual | Little | People | Power | Right | Time | Will | Government | Danger |

Ezra Taft Benson

In recognizing God as the source of their rights, the Founding Fathers declared Him to be the ultimate authority for their basis of law. This led them to the conviction that people do not make law but merely acknowledge preexisting law, giving it specific application. The Constitution was conceived to be such an expression of higher law. And when their work was done, James Madison wrote: “It is impossible for the man of pious reflection not to perceive in it a finger of that Almighty hand which has been so frequently and signally extended to our relief in the critical stages of the revolution” (The Federalist, no. 37).

Control | Government | Initiative | Means | Order | People | Power | Restraint | System | Government |

Ezra Taft Benson

Surely the preservation and enjoyment of the freedoms vouchsafed to us by the Constitution of the United States will require eternal vigilance even to the guarding of it with our lives… We must ever be on our guard against the unsound theories that would strike at our Constitutional freedoms. We must ever keep faith with our founding fathers by keeping faith with our Constitution. I trust that we all have faith in the Constitution of the United States, and that that faith is born of an assurance that this great document came into being through the inspiration of God to wise men, embodying as it does, eternal principles. This nation has a spiritual foundation which must be preserved at any cost of sweat and blood. May we recognize our debt and responsibility and be ever vigilant. The need for this eternal and constant vigilance is seen in some prophetic words of Daniel Webster, given in 1802: “Next to correct morals and watchful guardianship over the Constitution is the proper means for its support. No human advantage is indefensible. The fairest productions of man have in themselves or receive from accident a tendency to decay. Unless the Constitution be constantly fostered on the principles which created it, its excellency will fade; and it will feel, even in its infancy, the weakness and decrepitude of age. “Our form of government is superior to all others, inasmuch as it provides, in a fair and honorable manner for its own amendment. But it requires no gift or prophecy to foresee that this privilege may be seized on by demagogues, to introduce wild and destructive innovations. Under the gentle name of amendments, changes may be proposed which, if unresisted, will undermine the national compact, mar its fairest features, and reduce it finally to a dead letter. It abates nothing of the danger to say that alterations may be trifling and inconsiderable. If the Constitution be picked away by piecemeal, it is gone — and gone as effectually as if some military despot had grasped it at once, trampled it beneath his feet, and scattered its loose leaves in the wild winds.” If we are to keep faith with our Constitution, we must know it. Since it is the basis of our American way of life and our liberties every American should be familiar with it. We should read it periodically. How can people who are ignorant of the principles and guarantees of American government stand up in defense of it and our rights under the Constitution? The fundamentals and processes of free government should be known to every school boy — and his parents. No free people can ever survive if they are ignorant of and fail to understand the principles of free government!

Blessings | Darkness | Guidance | Lord | Power | Promise | Soul | Will | Guidance |

Felix Adler

Statesmen and Philanthropists are busy suggesting remedies for the cure of these great evils. But the renovation of our Civil Service, the reform of our Primaries, and whatever other measures may be devised, they all depend in the last instance upon the fidelity of those to whom their execution must be entrusted. They will all fail unless the root of the evil be attacked, unless the conscience of men be aroused, the confusion of right and wrong checked, and the loftier purposes of our being again brought powerfully home to the hearts of the people.

Change | Evolution | Human nature | Life | Life | Light | Mankind | Means | Men | Nature | Object | Perfection |

Felix Adler

The Hebrew prophets said of old, to serve Jehovah is to make your hearts pure and your hands clean from corruption, to help the suffering, to raise the oppressed. Jesus of Nazareth said that he came to comfort the weary and heavy laden. The Philosopher affirms that the true service of religion is the unselfish service of the common weal. There is no difference among them all. There is no difference in the law. But so long have they quarreled concerning the origin of law that the law itself has fallen more and more into abeyance. For indeed, as it is easier to say. "I do not believe," and have done with it, so also it is easier to say, "I believe," and thus to bribe one's way into heaven, as it were, than to fulfill nobly our human duties with all the daily struggle and sacrifice which they involve.

Life | Life |

Felix Adler

The frontier of the higher life is everywhere contiguous to the common life, and we can cross the border at any moment. The higher life is as real as the grosser things in which we put our trust. But our eyes must be anointed so that we may see it.

Diversity | Enough | Freedom of thought | Freedom | Individual | Nothing | Receive | Religion | Respect | Right | Sacred | Thought | Will | Respect | Thought |

Ezra Taft Benson

Prayer in the hour of need is a great boon. From simple trials to our Gethsemanes, prayer can put us in touch with God, our greatest source of comfort and counsel.

Belief | Dignity | Eternal | Fear | Free speech | God | Government | Life | Life | Right | Rights | Speech | Work | World | Worship | Government | Trial | God |

Ezra Taft Benson

We pay lip service to the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution without realizing what they are and the danger of ignoring them.

Earth | Evil | Father | God | Life | Life | Nothing | Opposition | God |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

I have never known anyone worth a damn who wasn't irascible.

Suicide | Thought | Thought |

Ezra Pound, fully Ezra Weston Loomis Pound

In case I conk out, this is provisionally what I have to do: I must clarify obscurities; I must make clearer definite ideas or dissociations. I must find a verbal formula to combat the rise of brutality—the principle of order versus the split atom.

Felix Adler

By ceaseless efforts to live the good life we maintain our moral sanity. Not from without, but from within, flow the divine waters that renew the soul.

Ends | Excellence | Life | Life | Worth | Excellence |

Felix Adler

An ideal is a port toward which we resolve to steer. We may not reach it. The mere fact that our goal is definitely located does not suffice to conduct us thither. But surely we shall thus stand a better chance of making port in the end than if we drift about aimlessly, the sport of winds and tides, without having decided in our own minds in what direction we ought to bend our course. The moral law is the expression of our inmost nature, and when we live in consonance with it we feel that we are living out our true being.

Age | Childhood | Father | Mother | Respect | Reverence | Respect |

Ezra Taft Benson

The antidote for pride is humility; meekness; submissiveness... Let us choose to be humble. We can choose to humble ourselves by conquering enmity toward our brothers and sisters, esteeming them as ourselves, and lifting them as high or higher than we are... We can choose to humble ourselves by receiving counsel and chastisement... We can choose to humble ourselves by forgiving those who have offended us... We can choose to humble ourselves by rendering selfless service... We can chose to humble ourselves by going on missions and preaching the word that can humble others... We can choose to humble ourselves by getting to the temple more frequently... We can choose to humble ourselves by confessing and forsaking our sins and being born of God... We can choose to humble ourselves by loving God, submitting our will to His, and putting Him first in our lives

Confidence | Danger | Government | Power | Wise | Government | Danger |

Ezra Taft Benson

Today the devil as a wolf in supposedly a new suit of sheepÂ’s clothing is enticing some men to parrot his line by advocating planned government guaranteed security at the expense of our liberties.

Life | Life | Spirit | Spirituality | Will |

Felix Adler

The family is the school of duties... founded on love.

Achievement | Eternal | Life | Life | Power | Regard | Sorrow | Strength | Unity | Weakness | Understand |

Faith Popcorn, born Faith Plotkin

We do a lot of brainstorming with our talent base of 6,500 experts globally,

Day | People | Power | Trouble |

Felix Adler

Let us learn from the lips of death the lessons of life. Let us live truly while we live, live for what is true and good and lasting. And let the memory of our dead help us to do this. For they are not wholly separated from us, if we remain loyal to them. In spirit they are with us. And we may think of them as silent, invisible, but real presences in our households.

Cause | Religion | Truth |

Felix Adler

The moral order never is, but is ever becoming. It grows with our growth.

Criticism | Desire | Doubt | Faith | Improvement | Individual | Life | Life | Nations | Regard | Sacred | Intellect |